by Mark Eller
* * * *
Athos scowled at his dying sister, scratched an itch on his chin, and wondered if he should take the time to save her life or if he should capture her nano encapsulated essence after she died. Either method would work well enough, but he found himself favoring the second option. If she died he could put her nano-trapped self into a new body, one not quite so effective. Now that the war was almost over he didn’t really need a sibling who was both cunning and strong.
He sighed. Still, she had proved herself to be his strongest supporter. Most likely, he would need her again before he finished winnowing out the chaff.
Expending more of his dwindling power, Athos ripped Dell’s interfering nano cloud from his sister’s body. He then changed the chemical make-up of the poison infecting her, turning it to water and gas.
Belthethsia lay before him, a pale blue lump of flesh, seeming insignificant and powerless. He sensed her body healing of its own accord, but the process was slow, far too slow to help him now. Fortunately for him, Athos had no present need of her help, not when he had the hook.
He shook his head. “Well, I didn’t plan on things turning out quite this way.. Tessla was supposed to die, but I never counted on her removing my sister from this battle..”
“But she did,” Joss pointed out, obviously trying to sound unafraid and strong.. “The odds have shifted in our favor. It’s now two against one.”
Brave words, perhaps, but Joss’s hands shook and sweat sheeted down his face.
Laughing contemptuously, Athos jumped from his seat on the gargoyle and strode toward Jolson, sparing Joss one disdainful glance. “You count for nothing. You‘re only here to carry a book holding worthless paper and ink. Come, Jolson. Let’s get this over with.” He raised the suddenly glowing hook above Jolson’s smaller body. “I’ve used a good deal of energy today so I’m running a bit low. I think it’s time I stole all of yours.” He laughed again. “You could stop me, cousin, maybe, if you only remembered how.”
Jolson held out his single hand. “Joss.”
Drawing in a quick, nervous breath, Joss awkwardly tossed the book to Jolson. It landed on Jolson’s palm and balanced there, steady and unmoving, while Jolson calmly looked into Athos’s eyes.
“Pathetic,” Athos muttered, disbelieving anyone could face him with nothing better than a book for a weapon and actually expect to live. “I truly don’t understand how the hell your lot ever managed to trap my father in the fucking hole. Of all the incompetent and wrong-headed ploys, this one—” Shaking his head in complete disbelief, he plunged the hook deep into Jolson’s body, wanting to get this anticlimactic moment over so he could get back to more interesting things, like murdering the remainder of an invading army.
Jolson did not flinch when the hook sank in. He shook, shuddered. Glorious agony glared from his eyes. Athos suddenly roared laughter at the realization of how much pain he caused his father’s old enemy. Still laughing, he reached through the hook for the remnants of Jolson’s god power, the bit of genetic code which linked him to Zorce’s nano plague. The connection came to him, the power, the added control. A thread of nano light, growing thicker, sucked out of Jolson’s body into the hook, draining him of vitality.
Jolson’s knees sagged and the arm holding the book dropped to his side, but to Athos’s surprise, the book did not fall. Instead, still attached to Jolson’s palm, it became smaller. Shrank. Merged. Entered into Jolson.
“The ink,” Jolson whispered,” is worthless, but not the cover. Not the paper. They hold Flinstar’s discarded memories. They hold Eric Jolson Flynt.”
Jolson’s knees straightened. His shoulders firmed, and his face turned toward the heavens. Jolson’s mouth opened in a silent scream, one Athos had no choice but to match as something unfathomable occurred.
The flow of power passing to him from Jolson stopped. Athos reached out with his strength, his will, with everything his unholy and evil flesh owned. His will flashed into the hook, grabbed hold, and sought to wrench it to his need.
And the hook…did not respond.
Instead, slowly, first a trickle, growing into a small stream, the nano flow reversed, pulling his strength, sucking his power.
Athos screamed.
He screamed, and he continued screaming while he jerked and pulled and tried to drag the hook free from Jolson’s body. To no avail. The almost sentient hook was caught between them, had become part of them both, was unwilling to separate from either of the two beings capable of wielding its full might. Athos felt his power, his control over the nano, pulled from him, torn free. Still screaming, he fought Jolson. He struggled against the older god’s, the older man’s, memories and control.
Jolson’s posture remained calm and resolute as his mouth remained open, emitting one long, continuous and horrific scream. The hook pulled itself deeper into the former spawn’s body while Athos shrieked back. It pulled until Athos’s stump met Jolson’s flesh, pulled until parts of their bodies merged.
Athos fought with every mental and magical trick he knew. He ripped his claws into Jolson’s body, tried to rip away his face, but wherever they struck no damage was done. When his claws parted flesh the flesh instantly nano healed.
Athos knew he was the stronger. He had the greater will. He had the greater strength, but he did not have memories of being nearly powerless, of being an aged youth suffering beneath the brutality of terrified townsmen and farmers during the beginnings of the nano plague. He did not have the experience of having his young and vulnerable flesh raped and nearly dismembered immediately before discovering the first faint trickling of power, a power which had now existed for thousands of years.
In other words, Athos did not have Jolson’s infinitely refined finesse and control,
Without moving, Jolson mentally and magically sidestepped Athos’s attacks, slipped them to the side, and grounded them into the air. Power burned off them both in a flare of light and heat that melted stones on the roof beneath their feet. Uncontrolled lightning shot from their bodies, cracked into the sky, flashing red and blue and gold. Beneath them, the castle rumbled and shifted as the earth beneath its foundation began to crumble.
“Give me the fucking damned hook,” Athos growled through clenched teeth and past incredible pain once both he and Jolson finally managed to stop screaming. “Give me your gods-cursed strength. We are too powerful to battle upon Terra. The planet will be destroyed if you don’t bow to my will. Reality will be permanently warped. Give in or you will destroy everything. All life will cease. Yours. Mine. All those for whom you once claimed to care. Is the death of everything better than having Hell on Terra?”
“I might be more than a man” Jolson panted, his voice strained, “but I am no longer a god. Flinstar is gone. Eric is gone. They died, and now Jolson lives to kill you, cousin. We virtuous gods decided long ago to correct our mistake. We always knew this time would come. We fought and we sacrificed. Every step was planned, even my becoming human and then spawn. The world is safe enough from me. It is you Terra must fear, and so you will die.”
But Athos knew Jolson’s words were empty. Slippery and controlled as he was, Jolson did not possess Athos’s innate power. Athos was a grandson of the nano plague’s true creator while Jolson was, at best, a very distant cousin. The initial infection most closely matched Athos’s genetic code. However, even with the extra power he had collected over the centuries, after his near destruction of the invading army, after his wonton displays of electric power and animalistic rage, after losing the strength Jolson had already pulled from his body, Athos felt weak. He almost felt as weak as he had been before he murdered his first brother. His strength, his power, had been wasted in a worthless display of lightning and heat. Even so, Jolson’s power remained less. He was weakening, drooping, half-supported by Athos’s arm and the hook buried in his body. The flaring energy rampaging above them drew closer, subsided, and was soon contained entirely within their own beings.
Once again, the flow
of power between Athos and Jolson stopped. Athos grinned when he saw sudden realization in the smaller man’s eyes. Jolson no longer controlled the flow. Once again, control of the hook belonged to Athos.
The hook throbbed on the end of Athos’s arm, pulsed, and then, with a flick of his will, it pulled again, pulled at Jolson, pulled at his remaining power. Athos shoved the hook deeper, sank his own wrist further into Jolson’s body, seeking a faster draw, glorying in the despair showing in Jolson’s expression at the knowledge that he had failed.
Athos looked deep into Jolson’s eyes and sought to understand why this fool had given up his godhood for a hopeless cause. Jolson had willingly become man and then spawn before struggling to become nearly a man once again. Afterward, he fought to regain parts of his discarded power and all his knowledge in a glorious desperate gamble that his skill and control might defeat Athos’s raw power.
Throwing back his head, Athos had no choice but to laugh. It had been a gods-damned fucking gloriously moronic and totally screwed up plan, one fated to fail.
They were fools. All of them. The virtuous gods and his father. With this hook Athos could not lose. Yes, he was incredibly weak now. Too weak. Barely more than a human mage in strength. Belthethsia had been correct. He never should have wasted his power during the battle, and later, he should not have kept Bel from dying, but those mistakes were over. Using the hook, he would suck the rest of Jolson’s power from him. He would then suck strength and power from Belthethsia and from the human, Joss, who now lay unconscious on the roof, burned and injured but with a strange new strength glowing from his flesh. Obviously, much of his and Jolson’s power had been wasted to the surroundings, flushed. Much of it had risen into the skies, but some, maybe enough to cause him difficulties, had been absorbed into Belthethsia and the human.
It didn’t matter. He would drain them both before they awakened. Down below, his devils would have captured the tree spirit woman. She possessed only a flicker of power, but he would drain her, too.
“You god’s damned bastard!” a voice shouted.
Athos groaned when a sword suddenly thrust through his back. He staggered forward half a pace, and then another sword struck him. Stiffening, Athos stood still, feeling stunned. The swords had hurt. They had actually hurt. Had he become so weak human swords could give him damage? But no, he felt Jolson’s touch, his personal burn, attached to the swords. Both weapons had been changed into instruments which disrupted and destroyed nano.
Athos twisted around, pulling Jolson with him, to see the tree spirit looking at him, two men standing by her side. Their hands were empty. Their faces appeared surprised that he did not fall when their swords still remained in his body. The tree spirit pointed above Jolson, directly at Athos’s head. Small lightning, barely more than a spark, shot at him. It was a pathetic attempt. A baby devil could do more, but even so the lightning tore into him because he was far too weak to shield.
Narrowing his eyes, Athos used his will to force the destroying swords from his body. They had damaged him, weakened him further, but he had a source of easy strength within reach. With a flick of his will, Athos ripped more strength from Jolson’s failing body, vowing these fucking humans would die. They would die and then—
Above him the heavens screamed. The earth shook, and jagged cracks sheared away sections of the castle’s walls. A force ripped at him. Dread. Despair. Grief. The sensation surprised him. It made him hesitate. Zorce. His father. Zorce was dead…had died in the shadow barrier between the upper and lower worlds, between true Terra Scientia and Anothosia’s created Hell. Zorce had died near the Hell Mouth where true reality merged most closely with the pocket universe. He had died at the one place where Yernden’s too powerful god’s could face one another and not destroy everything.
How? What could have gone wrong?
Cursing his lost vengeance against his father, Athos pulled strength from the hook one final time and sucked away the last of Jolson’s power, the last of his strength. It did not matter what had gone wrong with his father. Everything was apparently so fucked up beyond repair right now that only his personal survival mattered. He had to garner as much strength as he could and then run back to Hell like a cur with its tail between its legs. His father was dead. The other gods still lived, which meant they were supreme, and that pissed him the fuck off. It would be another hundred years, maybe more, before he could steal enough strength through the hook to challenge them again. A hundred years. More. Because of his father’s incompetence, once again, he would be trapped in Hell.
Oblivious to matters of greater importance, the tree spirit struck him again. Athos dropped Jolson’s drained body when the hook slid free. he raised his hooked arm, focused on the tree spirit, and from the corner of his eye saw a dark-haired woman’s head rise over the broken castle wall. Following behind her came a housecat of an unbelievable size who displayed incredibly horrendous claws. The woman spied him, threw herself over the wall, and rolled as the cat sprang to the roof. Athos instantly changed the direction of his aim, but he was too slow. Weak and slow, the tree spirit managed to hit him with her lightning again, making him pause with indecision as to which enemy to strike down first. The cat leapt forward and ripped into his body with its claws.
Athos hurt like he never had before. The claws tore into his body as the cat’s fangs sank into his neck. Poisons and acids bore into him. They merged with his own poison, changed it, and created something for which Athos had never prepared.
Shrieking, Athos grabbed the cat about its body and flung it away. The cat yowled as it rolled across the roof. Athos prepared a lightning bolt…but he had forgotten the damned human.
The dark-haired woman, the queen, watched him with steady, unafraid eyes as Athos’s lightning shot after the cat and missed. He twisted back toward her and tried to raise a fresh bolt of power as she raised a bow holding a green druid energy arrow. Her flat eyes were set and unforgiving.
“Nobody threatens my people,” she whispered. “Not even a god.”
Her bow released. Desperate, Athos relinquished his incomplete lightning to the sky and gestured at the arrow, willing it to splinter, but at that exact moment the damned tree sprite struck again, throwing his aim off. Unbelieving, Athos felt the arrow strike, sink in, burrow deeper, and emit all his remaining power through its shaft, transmitting everything he owned, his remaining strength, his potential, through the air and into every nearby living being— into everything— except him.
Athos dropped to his knees, suddenly not understanding why he felt weak. His legs would not support him. They would not…
His hand rested on dead flesh. On his cousin. On Jolson. Looking down on the former god, he wondered how everything had come to this. How?
A second arrow struck him. A third. The cat returned and began tearing into his flesh again. This time its poisons and acids met no resistance from Athos’s now powerless shell. The cat’s claws ripped open his chest and shredded his heart as the gods damned queen released one last arrow that spit his skull and buried itself deep within his brain.
And then Athos hovered near his broken body. He floated above it, watching the pathetic humans lean against one another for support, displaying weak weariness as the agitated cat paced back and forth. One of the humans, a desolate aristocrat, picked up a discarded sword and thrust it again and again into Athos’s body. Stopping its pacing, the cat turned its head to the sky and screeched. As it screeched its body shifted and changed until the cat became a naked crying woman who knelt in a pool of Athos’s congealing blood and cursed all of hellkind for having ruined her life.
Athos looked towards the heavens, saw lights, spirits. He saw Jolson and Tessla spiraling together toward the next journey, toward the next reward. Another spirit guided them, holding tight to Jolson’s insubstantial hand. Its name, Athos sensed, was Selnac.
Bitterness filled Athos, and despite. Apparently, souls really did exist, and fucking Tessla had actually owned one of her own; one bu
ried so deep in her flesh it had been hidden from her and the nano and the gods, but it had been there. Even the satisfaction of knowing he had sent her into oblivion was taken from him.
Athos reached toward the spiraling souls. He tried to pull himself toward them, tried to follow them, but he could not. He remained rooted. Unmoving. He reached for them one more time—
—and then he truly did wish he could scream.
From almost every direction creatures rushed toward him, creatures of spirit far greater than he and his father had ever pretended to be.
Athos’s spirit silently screamed as the unknown beings reached for him. He continued screaming while the creatures violently ripped apart his soul and scattered it into the nevermore. Athos continued to scream until nothing of him…was left.
* * * *
Was she dead, Ani wondered? Was this paradise?
The dancing motes moved closer, touching her. Laughter, joy and peace, all filled her and gave her comfort. Anithia opened herself to the light, soaked in the love, and in that instant the secrets of life, death, and eternity were revealed. In this knowledge she discovered something else, something she thought she would never know again.
Larson’s light detached from all the others, soft and shining. It melded with her essence until they became one light, one love.
“I was so angry with you,” Ani told the light.
The light shivered as if it were laughing. I know, darling. It does not matter. I never stopped loving you.”
Larson’s essence felt like silk upon her skin. She hugged up to it, embraced it, and tried to draw it into herself so she could protect him with her new power, but Larson drew back.
You don’t belong here my love, his spiritual voice whispered. You must return to Terra. You are not a true god even though you possess much of Zorce’s power.
“No.” Ani begged. “I won’t let you go. I won’t return without you.” She buried her essence deeper into his, unwilling to lose him a second time.